1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to ON/OFF control of a video light in an image capture apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in still image shooting of a dark scene such as a night scene, both the background and object can be shot by emitting light from a light-emitting device such as an electronic flash to increase the object's illuminance. The electronic flash has high illuminance, but emits a flash and is not effective when an object always needs to be illuminated, as in moving image shooting. To simultaneously shoot both the background and object in moving image shooting, there is an image capture apparatus which turns on a video light to increase the object illuminance, and shoots the object. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-318673 discloses a sensor camera which determines an ambient brightness, and when the brightness is equal to or lower than a predetermined value, turns on an illumination means and controls the light quantity of the illumination means.
However, when the ambient brightness is determined to control the light quantity of the illumination means, like the camera disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-318673, convergence of the luminance along with exposure variations upon light ON may be recorded, degrading the moving image quality. This may occur when, for example, automatic control of the illumination means is executed at the same time as moving image recording in a camera capable of moving image recording with one button from the still image mode. This state will be explained with reference to FIGS. 4A to 4E. In the still image mode, the display unit displays a so-called live view image which is an image periodically captured by an image sensor. As the live view image, the display unit displays an image for which the exposure is compensated so that a person can be easily seen even in a night scene in which he exists in a dark environment, as shown in FIG. 4A. When the start of moving image recording is designated in the exposure-compensated state, the illumination means emits light in correspondence with an ambient brightness upon the start of moving image recording. However, if exposure compensation is maintained to make the live view image bright, the person becomes brighter than necessary, as shown in FIG. 4C. After that, the exposure is converged to optimize the luminance of the excessively bright person. Such exposure variations occur after the start of moving image recording is designated. Thus, all the states in FIGS. 4C to 4E are recorded as a moving image, degrading the moving image quality.